Friday, August 19, 2005

parched, drought-dragged around like a glass of tender nothinggrasp at emotion with a flair for dead-pan, can-do derring dothis right-spinning spinal drain; taxing the constitutionso we run in wrong-handed circle jerk mood swings

drawn and quartered in an arc of angels and wet dreamssotted and soiled in the sweat of others' angers

fuck! people suck, rape and pillage all for black-gold tears of senseless self-absorption

sop the last muther-fucking croc-droplet, consume it drip, drip

the well is being stingy with her juices in these danse macabre-drenched daysAttended a peace vigil and then dropped $35+ on a tank of gas the other day and so I wrote this little ode to King George and his Knights of the Square-Peg-in-a-Round Hole Table, and their quest for oil-world dominance...

Monday, August 15, 2005

Hormones and other shit been batting me and my wildly swinging back emotions around a little bit lately and hence the lack of entries. But I'm still here and kicking! NEWS:I'm now an aunt (Sierra Grace is the beauty's name); been to Montreal with my double-A homey-beotches, Angela and Antonia; told my grandmother about transitioning (now everyone in my life knows!); survived a battery of surprisingly insightful boy-girl questions and demands for piggy-back rides from my visiting pre-teen young cousins; and put in my petition for a name change.

I'm a bit discombobulated 'cause things seem to be looking up and down and sideways all at the same time...

Friday, August 05, 2005

Dear reader - thanks for your comments! I appreciate your point of view and your willingness to engage in dialogue, and in the continuing spirit of a lively and open exchange of ideas....no offense m'friend, but if your attitude is "just sit back and abide" then you're no more free than the Iraqis were under Saddam. To not question the actions of OUR elected government, especially when they increasingly surround their actions and policies in a cloak of secrecy and "national security," is to allow the ruination of our free and open way of life. Hopefully one day you and other good hearted citizens out there will wake up and realize that such a hands-off philosophy is little more than building a jail for yourself to live in, and in the end being a self-centered slave to authority and fear. Authority is, by it's very nature, anti-freedom. I'm not suggesting chaos - I believe in the rule of law - but only when strongly checked by underlying and unmovable freedoms and protections for ALL individuals and groups and freedom of expression and ideas. Our ancestors (and also our current soldiers) fought and died for these freedoms. If we choose safety at the expense of freedom (and there can never be absolute safety if we are to enjoy any modicum of freedom), we are belittling the unlimate sacrifice our fellow citizens have and continue to make for us. Do you really think that, no matter how much money we spend, we will ever be able to prevent all acts of terrorism? The idea that these terrorists simplisticly "hate America" or "hate freedom" is absolutely absurd. They hate our government and the foreign policy actions of our government. So perhaps we should be examining how as a nation we might treat our fellow humans and nations better rather than viewing everyone as a potential terrorist. In my view it comes down to the issue of trust. We can live our lives in fear and stress and distrust (and inevitably mass-scale violence and suppression of diversity), or we can open our eyes and live life in peace, always striving for openness, truth, harmony, inclusiveness and a shared humanity, and with a basic trust in the goodness of the majority of our fellow homo sapiens. And in the end, it's up to each individual to make their own choice in this. Regardless of anyone else, I choose freedom, truth, trust, peace and harmony...

My recent experience crossing the border to and from Canada afforded me a brief firsthand experience of the heavy and blunt hand of our police state (not too bad tho - many, many others, mostly minoroties and legal immigrants have had it much, much worse - they just searched our car and checked our creds for no apparent reason). So here are a couple recent stories of people I work with (albeit, heard second hand and so probably missing some details):

1. If you live in northern NY you have probably heard about the constant roadside checkpoints the state police have set up on the northway about an hour south of the Canadian border (despite the fact that such checkpoints are illegal - I think they get around this by shutting then down briefly on occasion). Evidently, we are fast approaching a time when you will need all your identification documents just to travel within your own country. This Chinese born citizen and his wife, both legally in and working in the US were just making a trip up to Plattsburgh. However, they were stopped by the checkpoint and not allowed to pass because they did not have all their papers with them. So they were forced to go back home, get their papers and return. And this was all to travel within the same damn state!

2. An african born naturalized citizen and his wife (who is a legal alien) were travelling to Canada so he could present a research paper at a conference. At the border, they were stopped and poked and prodded and they simply would not let this guy's wife over the border, despite the fact that she had all her papers with her. Now I'm not sure what the rules are for legal aliens as far as travel, but this guy had to drive all the way back home, drop off his wife and then go back!

Police states are not only ruled by violence and suppression of dissent, but by fear and fanatical patriotism (or more accurately, nationalism). Which then leads to the subtle erosion of civil liberties and privacy and the loss of a presumption of citizen innocence. Here are some news items to illustrate these points:

So to sum up: our country is getting more and more f*cked up by the day. We're losing ourselves in fear and are fast slipping into a new, mass-media-controlled form of fascism. 'nuff said? Ok - then write letters to the editors of your fav newspapers or mags, open-mindedly discuss these things in earnest with your family, friends, neighbors and colleagues; compile your own research on this stuff - do something!

b/c any little effort to speak up for all our rights is better than nothing...

Me Me Me

I'm an academic instruction librarian providing services for mostly working adult distance learners at a state college. Our library is completely online (gasp! no print materials at all). I'm also an avid video gamer and play competitive roller derby on the side.